According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that seem right? That means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy. 

— Jerry Seinfeld

If doesn’t matter if we are performing in front of thousands of people or standing up and saying our name at a local PTA meeting, we know the sensations that accompany being “looked at.” We might experience a racing heart, nausea, cold hands, trembling or a dry mouth.   

Very few people are exempt from experiencing stage fright. Pavarotti famously said, “I go to die” before every performance, and prior to going onstage, the great tenor Enrico Caruso could be heard yelling at his “little self” to get out of the way so that his “big self” could come through. Ball players “choke,” and golfers get “the yips.” Olympic skaters find that their legs get heavy and they lose their timing. Singers and public speakers go “dry.” 

You don’t need to spend years in psychoanalysis trying to unravel your fear of public speaking. You can actually learn not to be paralyzed by these sensations, with a few tools that should be practiced consistently so they’re integrated into your life.

Being Present with Fear

Shortly after I finished college, I went to study with a great voice teacher, the Russian soprano Olga Averino. Mme. Averino was acclaimed for her artistry and demanded nothing but the very best from her students, no matter their degree of talent. I adored the discipline that Olga instilled in me, and I felt honored that she respected my musicality and talent. 

We got on well, so I felt comfortable unburdening myself to her about my almost-paralyzing stage fright. Instead of offering comforting words to assuage my anxieties about performing, she simply said in her imperious and indisputable way, “If you are focused on the music, you have no stage fright.”

Olga was right, of course, but very few of us can be that focused when we start out. Staying present with stage fright is what shifts our anxiety, but no beginning performer, public speaker or athlete can be sensitive enough to attain that degree of awareness. That takes a long time and lots of practice. Most of the time our feelings are so unpleasant that we just want to stop them. Professional performers, athletes and the best public speakers have learned how to allow themselves to experience all the vulnerability and feelings of exposure that accompany performance. We all “go to die.” 

Using Panoramic Vision

What has helped me enormously in working though my own stage fright is how I use my eyes.  When we are in a state of “fight or flight” (which is what stage fright is), our pupils dilate and our vision narrows. We cannot see peripherally. It’s akin to the portrait mode on an iPhone. What shifts us out of fight or flight is to see panoramically, which stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. Your eyes will soften and become receptive; you will see more, and you will see peripherally. 

Perhaps the best way to understand panoramic vision is to look at a night sky. In order to see the faintest star, we have to soften our vision and let the stars come to us. We do that intuitively.

Notice how calm, centered and in the moment that makes you feel. Practice shifting to a narrow focus by trying to “look at” the furthest star. Do you notice how that tightens your whole body? You are straining to see, and it’s uncomfortable. Shift back and forth between the two ways of seeing so that panoramic vision becomes a skill that you can call upon at any time.

When I walk onstage or stand in front of a group, my eyes soften and I make contact with my audience as if I’m saying to them, “I'm glad we are both here.” The audience responds immediately because I’ve invited them to share something with me. The focus is no longer on me, but on the music I’m performing or the material I’m presenting. I feel centered and alive, and my audience does too.  

I was recently interviewed by Allison Gorman, the editor of Natural Awakenings magazine, for a piece she was writing based on Jessica Kerwin Jenkins' article in Vogue magazine: How a Voice Makeover Upped My Zoom Game—And Changed My Life.

Here is our interview:

Jessica describes her previous manner of vocalizing as both an affectation and the product of vocal constriction. In your experience, are women more susceptible than men to either or both? If so, why do you think that is?

In my experience “affecting” a voice is exceedingly common.  When we emerge into adulthood and are trying to “find ourselves,” we often try on different voices to fit a certain image we want to have for ourselves.  We create a voice to fit a presumed persona.  It is rarely satisfying and it always sounds affected and not truthful.  Men affect a deep resonant voice (or what they think that should be) that sounds extremely flat and put on, and in today’s world, women often affect a voice that sounds businesslike and matter of fact.  I teach a businesswoman who has affected a voice devoid of color and an attitude to match.  She is a slight woman and feels she won’t be respected if her voice has nuance, color and spontaneity. We tell ourselves so many myths, don’t we?  

The point of Jessica’s article is that she took vocal lessons from you—and these lessons were very much about physiology—yet the result was far more than a changed voice; it was a newly empowered sense of self. Is this a transformation you see often in your female students? Could you explain briefly this interrelationship between the physiological and the psychological?

After college, I studied voice with a renowned singer and artist, Olga Averino.  In describing the vocal process she would say, “It is really very simple; that is not to say it is easy.”  The human body is pure genius.  When we connect to the inner muscles responsible for breath and voice, everything flows—our breath, our voice, and our self expression.  The “not easy” part is that these muscles live in a sort of no-man’s land between consciousness and unconsciousness, and we must bring them to consciousness. That is the essence of my work.  It is a phenomenal experience to connect to these inner muscles.  We feel a great sense of self.  We are grounded in our being and the truth of who we are.  That becomes what we hear in the sound of someone’s voice and it is always compelling.

When women cultivate a “new” voice generated from deeper, fuller breathing, how subtle is that change? Do they still sound like a version of the same person?

It is really not so much "cultivating" a new voice but rather uncovering what already exists in us. Often people will come to my class and tell me how much they hate the sound of their own voice and how they recoil when they hear themselves on a recording.  I am always bothered by that.  To me it seems as if they are rejecting a part of themselves.  I tell a class immediately that our work is not about changing the sound of the voice, but rather about learning how to produce a voice on breath which becomes their authentic voice.  It is who they are. It is a full-body expression which results in something we call voice. All too often people—both women and men—focus on their sound. That is dangerous because psychophysically it makes them try to manipulate something from their throats.  They try to “make” sound and this disconnects them from their bodies and the muscles responsible for voice and breath. I have been teaching a college professor for many years who originally came to me for Alexander lessons and breathing.  She is a brilliant teacher and mentor to her students and has won many awards for her teaching.  She shared with me early on that the only complaint her students had when they evaluated her was the nasality of her voice.  We have now been together for nearly twenty years, and she never received that comment again.  We did nothing to “change” her voice, and we didn’t even focus on voice.  We focused on body and breath.  Once again,  the simplicity is that when we align with the muscles of voice and breath (psoas muscles and their connection to the diaphragm) our voice produces overtones. It becomes focused and it projects.  We aren’t trying to “fix” or “make” a new voice. Change in sound comes from connecting to the muscles responsible for voice and breath.

My takeaway from Jessica’s article is that she decided to take lessons because she realized that the voice she had cultivated was not benefiting her (I assume she meant professionally, but maybe socially too). Is this a reason you hear often from your female students? 

The majority of students in my class at The Open Center are women, and the major reasons they come to class are vocal tension, nervousness in expressing themselves and a voice that doesn’t project. Many times I have heard students tell me their “throat chakra is blocked.” It is understandable that they would focus on their voice for the reasons I have mentioned, so my job as a teacher is to constantly remind them that voice is breath and body and that how they “use” themselves physically determines the freedom in their voice.  I love it when students (who have previously been horrified by hearing their voices on a recording) say to me, “I don’t mind hearing myself anymore.” To me that means that their voice is coming from an integrated place.  How amazing (and simple!) it is.  When a voice emanates from the alignment of the inner muscles of the body, it is from our true self. That is our uniqueness and it will always be profoundly beautiful.

A few months ago, I received an email asking me if I did “toning” in my classes.  I responded by saying that what I teach is how to use one’s breath and body to essentially “hum” all the time, which, in my mind, is the essence of toning.  Apparently, that was not a satisfactory answer.  The person wanted something more mystical than, “When we are aligned internally through the muscles responsible for breath and voice, we resonate continually.”   In fact, we are humming beings.  We are invigorated and energized and we feel vibration move through our whole body and onto our lips and face.

Humming is acknowledged as an excellent way to “harmonize” body and mind, but it is important to understand what makes a hum so enlivening and healthy.  If one hums in a way that uses the throat or presses with the lips, it is not beneficial.  The ideal hum is an end result of the alignment of the inner muscles of the torso which remarkably creates just the right amount of air pressure in the lungs to vibrate the vocal cords.  The miracle of the human body is that when the air pressure is just right the vocal cords produce a regular sound wave which resonates through our whole being and carries our sound without effort.  We don’t control that; it is the wisdom and creativity of the human body.  Our job is to create the conditions for it to happen.

You will find great power in creating those conditions even before you get to humming. One way to stimulate the inner muscles responsible for humming is to sit in such a way that you sense your chair holding you up.  Rest your hands at the bottom of your torso, like the Buddha sitting in lotus, and sense something deep and profound inside of you.  Be careful not to look in to try to “find” something, but rather let it stir in you and surprise you. Very lightly and very slightly let escape a tiny moan.  Make sure that it does not come from your throat but from where you are resting your hands.  This is the starting point of a hum.  If you are too eager to hum and you hum from your throat without an awareness of how sound happens, you will disconnect from your body and be working against it.  It’s almost like you will be saying to your body, “I am humming and through my hum I will harmonize with you.”  In fact, it is the opposite.  It is the integration and interplay of the inner muscles of our body which allow the vocal cords to vibrate and to resonate through our bones and cells.  We stand aside ourselves and witness this resonation—this humming being—and we are transfixed by this experience.